


Taberna Nordica

by MeltyRum



Category: Durarara!!, Gangsta. (Anime & Manga), VA-11 Hall-A (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23251156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeltyRum/pseuds/MeltyRum
Summary: Reverse bechdel failure.
Relationships: Jill Stingray/Celty Sturluson
Kudos: 3
Collections: Boku no Hero Academia x Persona





	Taberna Nordica

When she stepped outside of the bar and into the cool air outside, Jill took the time to fasten her jacket up further, stopping only when it had closed snugly up against her chin. She also hastily lit a cigarette, even though she knew it wouldn’t help with warming her up—but at least the friendly flame of the lighter could remind her she wasn’t doomed to death by frostbite or nicotine withdrawal. Not that frostbite was going to happen any time soon, even though April was always rather cool in Gotham—and this past month had felt even more frigid than usual.

It had been a long day without many customers, which Jill was beginning to think were even worse than those days populated by those few customers who she felt deserved neither her hospitality nor her service.

Some smug people might say bartending was an art, but that was only partially true. Sure, there _could_ be some art in the mixing and measuring of the ingredients that would become an alcoholic beverage, but most of the art came from handling customers and being a service-person at their disposal. That didn’t necessarily mean a bartender should have to hear a customer’s tragic life story or uninformed political opinions, but industry protocol demanded that any bartenders held hostage in this fashion had best do their best not to balk when patrons thought to take advantage of their captive audience. The intrepid bartender must be able to withstand assault from all sides.

So it was that the worst, hardest, best, and easiest parts of serving people all ended up being one and the same: talking to people.The service profession bore an interesting wrinkle, in that serving another human being—for _some_ reason—was never as simple as it should be, for a significant portion of the population. So if bartending was an art, it was a… _cooperative_ endeavor, even if some customers seemed to see it as a competitive one.

Well, at least competition was usually fun. If it was a choice between shitty customers and _no_ customers, Jill was surprised to find that she might choose the former. If nothing else, some of them made for good stories afterward.

She wasn’t certain if she would extend that logic to the rest of life, though. “No news is good news”, as they said, but Jill was exposed to plenty of newsworthy things one way or another. Conditions in their part of town were probably best described as “turbulent”. Life and death both naturally felt a lot closer to people living in an area that shared so much space with characters such as the Russos, the Handymen, and other, less-notorious criminal elements—but it went without saying that most of the people here were _not_ criminals, of course, and were just trying to live their lives as smoothly as they could.

Just like Jill herself, who did her best to sling drinks so that she could eat and sleep in some modicum of comfort.

It took her a moment to notice the rhythmic vibrating in her pocket, but she put the phone to her ear the instant she realized:

“Can I help you?” she prompted.

“Ah—you answered,” came another feminine voice, distorted only slightly by the speakers of her cell. “I guess that means you’re not at Valhalla.”

“Nope, just finished up. Why? You need a drink, Alma?”

“Not as much as someone to vent to, although _need_ is a pretty strong word.”

“I’m pretty sure the boss will be at the bar for a while.”

“Come on, you know I’m not going to tell him about all the sister stuff. Anyway, I was just thinking we could hang out. Is it alright if I swing by your place?”

Jill briefly pulled the phone away from her ear, cocking an eyebrow the time on her display. “It’s early morning already. You can come by—I’ve got stuff to drink, and I’ll be awake—but don’t you have to work tomorrow, or something?

“I’ll call in if I have to,” replied Alma, her voice taking on a dismissive tone which was thick with a sense of economic security that invoked a peculiar sense of envy that Jill did her utmost to suppress.

“Alright, alright. But we’re not showering together, got it? Just hanging out.”

#

“So that’s the whole story. Mostly all the same stuff as before, now that I say it out loud,” said Alma with some finality, starting to mix herself another drink and holding her glass down firmly so that Fore couldn’t paw it straight off of the table.

Jill discarded her fourth empty can of the evening and invited herself to another. “Yep. That sounds like Dayana, alright.”

“God, I’m glad my parents gave me a name with a reasonable spelling,” sighed Alma, setting aside her borrowed stirring stick.

This earned a bit of laughter from Jill. “Yeah. If only we could all be so grateful to have pleasant-sounding names. With pleasant spellings, to boot.”

“I don’t know; there’s nothing wrong with J—”

“Don’t,” warned Jill, pointing a threatening finger from around the cool curve of her can.

“What? I was just going to say ‘Jill’,” said Alma, wearing a smile so innocent that no one in the world would trust it.

“Sure you were,” said Jill, sipping on her beer. “Well, how about your secret agent guy? Everything going well with him?”

“More or less,” Alma started, apparently content to stop with that. Jill could see that she wasn’t done playing bartender for tonight.

“That’s not very enthusiastic,” she pointed out, lifting Fore up into her lap.

“No, I guess it’s not. It’s just the distance thing. We’re ‘used’ to it, and Shuuichi himself is perfectly dreamy, but… he’s obviously busy. Distracted. And I don’t even know what the chances are that he’ll be working closer to Gotham whenever he’s finished up with the training.” She paused, circling the rim of her glass with a finger, before eventually shaking her head. “It just feels like a disturbingly familiar situation.”

Jill had just been getting that same needling feeling. “Right. Like with Batman.”

“Sort of. Obviously he’s distracted for a different reason, but the effect is about the same.”

“Seems like it’s on your mind, though. Are you worried about it?”

“I’m not sure I would go that far,” Alma replied, smiling sadly, “but it _does_ stay on my mind, that’s for sure. Having to be patient in the short-term—the distance, and all that—is one thing, but I also just can’t help thinking about whether it’ll work out in the _long_ -term, you know? I don’t even know if he’ll want children; and then even if he does, I doubt CIA work makes it easy to have a normal family life.”

Jill responded with a diplomatic shrug. “I bet some of it is more boring than we think, so you never know. Anyway, you’re already thinking about kids?”

“Sure. I don’t want them any time very soon, but my partner not wanting them at all would be sort of a deal-breaker. You know me: I love my family, so I’d like to grow it a bit one day. Whether that’s with Shuuichi or not…” Alma shrugged, apparently deciding there was no reason to take that sentence to its conclusion.

“Anyway,” she continued, “how about your own relationships? Seeing anyone?”

“Nope. Dunno if there’s much to say; last relationship worth talking about was probably in high school.” Sensing an increase in dramatic gossip, Fore took it upon himself to roll off of Jill’s lap, heading off to investigate something more interesting than the interpersonal troubles of mere humans.

Alma blinked at Jill’s statement, however, clearly not believing it. “You are joking.”

“Nope. I mean, college was one thing, but… I don’t really feel like talking about it. Maybe another time,” said Jill, with a monotone inflection that hopefully made it clear that whenever this time would be, it would not come around _soon_. “I can talk about high school, though. It was a weird situation—and painful at the time—but in retrospect I mostly feel sorry for the girl I dated?”

“A girl, huh? What made it weird? Oh—start from the beginning!” urged Alma, with a content smile that told the world she was ready for a good story.

Well… Jill didn’t think her story would be _that_ interesting, but it was too late to withhold it now:

“When I was a junior in high school, there was a cute freshman who took a liking to me. I took my art elective late, so we got to know each other there, and sort of bonded over our combined lack of abilities. It wasn’t a very good class; if anything, we both got worse as things went on… but we had a lot of fun. After that, we started hanging out outside of class, which eventually led us to dates at the mall, dinner, that kind of thing. We got pretty close, in every sense. Eventually I learned that she was an orphan—which ends up being important, I promise.” Jill thought quietly for a moment, deciding that most of the happy stuff was just the usual, so it didn’t warrant a lot of reminiscing.

After another careful sip of beer, she moved on: “The weird part was this: every couple of weeks, we’d have to cancel or reschedule a date because her ‘uncle’ had asked to see her. I didn’t think much of it at the time since, sure, an orphan could have an uncle, right? And maybe it was just a nickname for a foster parent, or something.” She let out a shallow sigh, frowning at her drink for a minute before deciding to finish the can.

Alma watched curiously, knowing the alcohol would have little effect on Jill, for better or worse. “Given the way you put it, I’m guessing there was more to it than that. Was the ‘uncle’ bad news?”

Jill nodded. “I was never involved with him personally, but yes. This probably won’t come as a surprise, but he wasn’t her uncle at all. He was the big man in the Arcangelo family—some kind of filthy rich big fucking deal, I guess?—and it turned out she was sleeping with him a few times a month in exchange for favors, presents, that kind of thing.”

“Cheating, huh…?” asked Alma, her face the perfect picture of sympathy.

“Yeah, although I’m not completely sure she thought of it that way. She knew it was _wrong_ , given we were in a relationship, but to her it seemed like some kind of necessity—as though it was the only way she could get anywhere. She thought of it as her way of sort of using this guy, even though… she was clearly being used, herself.” Jill paused, swishing the few drops remaining in her can. “In some ways it was hard to blame her—she was pretty convincing—but it goes without saying that seeing a sugar daddy isn’t conducive to a successful romantic relationship.”

“I’m sorry to hear it, Jill.”

She smiled, appreciative of the pity and consolation she saw on Alma’s face. “Don’t be—it was a long time ago, and the relationship only lasted a year or so. Fun while it lasted, and it was a big deal at the time, but… in hindsight, it was more like a couple of dumb kids playing around. And one of us was just playing a bit more than the other. I wouldn’t say I regretted it, but man… obviously I never would have agreed to date her if I knew what she was up to. She was weirdly nice about the break-up, like she was completely cognizant of it being her fault, while also looking at her rich guy’s… ‘patronage’ as being too important to surrender.”

“It’s certainly a strange arrangement,” Alma agreed. “I know ‘sugar daddies’ are a _thing_ , but I feel like I’ve never actually heard of it happening.”

Jill opened a brand new can and took a noisy sip. “Given what she told me, it’s probably more common than we think. Sort of made it sound like she wasn’t the only girl he saw.”

“That’s awful,” observed Alma, her inebriation bringing her frustration right to the surface. Injustice always _was_ more painful after a few drinks.

“It is. Cheating and manipulation all in one, I guess.” Jill sighed. “I mostly pity the fact she had to do things that way—and not in a sanctimonious way. I know college and nice things don’t come cheaply—you can see how shitty my apartment is—but that sure is a rough way to make ends meet.” She thought briefly of Worick, wondering how different _his_ line of work was to that sort of thing. “Thanks for listening; it kind of felt good to talk about it, since you’re probably the first to hear it.”

Alma finished her drink, smiling thinly. “Well, I’m glad my presence here wasn’t too much of a bother; at least we got to trade stories, more or less.” She looked around the cramped space of the studio apartment which Jill did her very best to inhabit, her eyes eventually landing at Fore, who had lazily curled himself up on the foot of the bed. “I hate to ask, but… can I stay over tonight? I’m a few drinks more deep than I thought I’d be.”

“Oh yeah.” Jill looked to the clock, trying to convince herself that it was _not_ the ungodly hour which it showed her. “You drove here, huh? I’ll see if I can find some extra sheets.”

“Too much to ask to share your bed, huh?” asked Alma, her lips having already twisted into a mischievous smile.

“No offense, but your boobs take up so much room I’d be crushed against the wall. Anyway, I can take the floor and use Fore as a pillow,” she joked, rising to her feet with a steadiness that was both impressive and disheartening. Sometimes she envied her customers’ abilities to lose their motor skills after a couple of drinks. “It’ll be good for my back, anyway—maybe.”

At any rate, it might be pleasant to have another source of life in her apartment for the night—although Jill would never admit it out loud, for fear of scalding Fore’s very sensitive, jealous ears. Once they’d turned the lights out, Jill took a moment to peer out her balcony at the city streets below, which were no doubt colder and emptier even than when she had left the bar. The streets might be dangerous, but it wasn’t like you had a good chance of seeing a crime just by peeking out your window—no matter the hour.

In any case, it would be mere hours—hour?—before the sun was hitting these alleyways and people were milling in greater numbers and purpose. _Those_ were the hours Jill slept through, of course, preferring the way the city looked and felt in the evening hours. Even if that’s when heroes and villains started coming out to play.


End file.
